Posts Tagged ‘Me’

These are two very special friends of mine. We are all Mums of kindergarten and under kids, mostly boys (until Little Princess crashed the testosterone party), and boys of particular temperaments.

We know what life can be like.

And we love each other dearly.

Today, both these girls came to visit (for a total of five kids under the age of four). This is what we refer to as time out for Mumma.

My friend Sam-O, you already know. We went to high school together-where she was in the cool, A-crowd and I was a nerd (had to put that in for you, Sammy!), (our Mum’s were friends, too), then lost touch, then, thanks to facebook, discovered that we lived just down the road from each other (nowhere near where we grew up) and that we had kids the same age. We clicked and have become besties.

My friend L and I met at Church when our big kids were 7 and 8 months old respectively and have been besties ever since.

Why “pyjama friends”? Well, we established long ago that if you are having a rough day, you don’t have to get dressed. You can turn up in pjs, or be in pjs when someone arrives. We know the score.

Yes, we are that close. These are the kinds of friends with whom we can share our worst grievances about family life, when our DHs are annoying us, when we want to put the kids on eBay- and, instead of calling the Department of Community Services, they listen, say something supportive and hand us a hot cuppa. We know that we all love our families dearly, but sometimes we need to let off steam. These girls are that safe environment.

I would be lost without these two. I hope they know how much I love them.

I have been working on acceptance this last three days. Acceptance of me. I am trying to avoid judging myself, because I hadn’t realised how much I did that.

I also had not realised how much I was effected by anxiety. I am starting to recognise it’s symptoms in me everywhere. It is amazing! So many situations have come up already, especially with the kids, where I had thought that I was a failure or a bad person for the kind of reactions that I had, but now I am noticing that just prior to that reaction I am overloaded with anxiety symptoms.

It has been a real eye-opener. Instead of judging myself as bad, I am gentle with myself and acknowledge GAD. This is not to say that I am allowed to do whatever happens, it just means that I can see what is causing it. I can say to myself, “Ah, there is that anxiety again. It isn’t me; it isn’t the kids; it is anxiety. I’m going to learn how to deal with that.” And that in itself can help limit the snowballing.

Not that it always works. Sometimes things can be a little tough.

For example: we are hosting my Mother’s 85th birthday party here next Saturday. I am dreading it. I really wanted it to happen for my Mum, and this seemed the only way to do it, but the pressure is killing me. The apparent expectation of failure that is coming from some of my siblings is not helping any.

Today I received some emails that had been copied to the whole family, that were really insulting to me and my abilities to organise the event. They may not have been meant like that, but they hurt like crazy. I cried and cried. And then I replied. Vitriolicly. I was hurt and I was raging.

I have probably succeeded in alienating a whole bunch of people. NOT what I hoped to achieve. Not the way I would normally behave.

Unfortunately, when you are against the wall already, or already down, pushing buttons, even a little bit, really, really hurts.

Now I need to learn to accept this. Learn to be a little more gracious with myself. Heal a bit, rather than make it worse. Then I will need to clear the air.

Isn’t it strange how sometimes it is easier to believe something if someone else tells you? Even if it is something that you already know? And sometimes you even need to be told by a professional?

I have been really struggling with the demands of being a Mum to my three Little’s. It is a struggle keeping up with three little beings and all their needs, let alone the nice to haves. I am sure you either know that or can understand. On top of this I battle with depression and generalised anxiety disorder. The last couple of years has been especially difficult.

There is so much that I want to do for my family, so many ideas that I would like to implement. Some of these are basic – like getting on top of the household day to day, while others are bigger dreams. I beat myself up for being too exhausted to do so, for struggling to serve good meals every day, for being unable to fit in all the basics, for being cranky, for not being sparky. I think it is fair to say that I am not the mother that I would like to be; not the mother that I would like my children to have.

I am just so jolly tired. Not just physically tired from bad sleeping habits and from not having had a good night’s sleep in pretty much 4 1/2 years, but emotionally worn down, mentally burnt out. But surely that is just making excuses?

Today I finally got in to a psychologist appointment – it is amazing how difficult that can be! It is tough getting the time away from the kids. I spent an hour and three quarters there today in an introductory session. I am not in the best state I have ever been in (hence the appointment!), so not surprisingly, I have a bit of work to do. However I have walked out of this appointment with two very useful pieces of information:

1/ I am a lot more resilient than I realised – some of the times I have thought I was at my weakest, I have actually proved this. Also, my worst dealings with depression have occurred when I had a number of triggers and situations occurring at the same time that were beyond my control.

And

2/ I am emotionally zapped. I can’t do all this stuff I want to do because – wait for it – I am too tired!

Really, I knew it already, but I felt I was making excuses. Sure, my friends had told me, but they are supposed to be supportive. So now I can finally believe it. Suddenly I am freed from that guilt, the insidious disempowerment of depression. Free to look after myself and follow the directions of those professionals on whose care I am currently dependant. Free to believe what I already know.

Today, I am feeling old. I have been to the doctor and received some news. It is news that I have always known would come one day, and lately I have been suspecting, but I still didn’t want to the be told.

I have arthritis.

I have arthritis in one of my toes at this stage, but I am sure I will end up with it in most of my feet (as in most of each foot, as opposed to me actually having seventeen feet and getting arthritis in sixteen of them!)

So how did I know this would happen?

I studied ballet. I did a lot of ballet. At the time I had a number of injuries, as with any relatively elite athlete. However, the biggest issue, I believe was that I went onto pointe about a year too soon. I had the muscle strength, but not the bone strength.

Of course, if I were to do it again, would I do it differently? Uh-uh. Nope. Nada. Unless it involved doing MORE dancing. ~shrug~ What’s a girl to do?

It is interesting to note that I am approximately retirement age for a professional ballet dancer. They tend to retire due to a combination of injury and gradually decreasing energy levels. I certainly fit that bill.

So I guess I am off to try glucosamine and hope, that what my doctor said is right – the advantage of getting arthritis so young is that there is a better chance joint replacements will improve in my life time! Hmm.

Okay, it is true. I didn’t have this photo taken this week. It seems it is only Possum and Bandicoot who photograph me, generally, and as I have been laid up with migraines, that hasn’t been happening.

BUT this photo was taken not very long ago. It was on a family day out:

and it is me with all the kids, Possum being as crazy as he can.

It is almost impossible to get a nice photo with everyone behaving, um, photogenicly. As Bill Waterson said, via Calvin’s Dad (Calvin and Hobbes), “Someday these photos will remind us of more than we want to remember.”

Aah! Real life. It’s lots of fun, even if it has a pair of chopsticks whacked in front of your face!

Possum is a budding photographer. He is forever taking the camera and snapping all sorts of shots around the house, chronicling our real actual life, not the edited one I am planning on remembering. Bandicoot is now doing the same. I will do a photo collage of some at some point.

Anyway, this week’s Embrace the Camera shot comes to you, courtesy of the boys photography:

Yup, that’s me, taken from under the desk. Funny thing is, I am sitting in that position right now, in between typing. I must do it a lot.

I have to say, the thing that struck me most about this pic when I first saw it was that I have no wounds on my chin. Not that I should have, mind, but with a house run by three under-school-age kids, generally chins have knocks, scrapes and bruises.